How to Format HDD Without..............

Pharaoh

Hey Guys!
Here's my problem.........
I need to reinstall windows on a dell I bought from a friend,the problem is I only have a Windows98SE disk,no application or system CD like you get when you by a Gateway.
Is there anyway I can wipe the harddrive and reinstall windows just using the W98 disk.

Koopa

yeah, the win98se cd is bootable.
when you boot off it, it redirects a:\ to the boot sector on the cd, so try going to a:\ and formatting c:

Pharaoh

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Koopa:
yeah, the win98se cd is bootable.
when you boot off it, it redirects a: to the boot sector on the cd, so try going to a: and formatting c:</font>

Sorry Koopa, but could you be a bit more specific,I don't really understand what you mean?
What I need is a sort of step by step guide if you can.

Cake Fiend

You should be able to boot off your W98 CD - check your BIOS for the option. If that works, boot back into windows, back up any drivers and files you need, then boot off the Win 98 CD. Format your drive, then reboot and install windows from the CD.

ConUladh

Posting this cause I interpreted Pharaoh's question differently,

Pharaoh, are you saying your PC only came with a W98 boot floppy and no CD?

Pharaoh

I have the W98 CD........no boot floppy.

Renton

Alright, heres what to do

1. Download this cdrom Driver (aoatapi.sys)
from http://var.gameshop.ie/aoatapi.sys
Right click and go Save as, otherwise IE wont like it

2.
Get a blank floppy, go into dos, type
format a: /s
echo device=aoatapi.sys /d:idecd001 > a:\config.sys
echo mscdex /d:idecd001 > a:\autoexec.bat
copy c:\windows\command\format.com a:\
copy c:\windows\command\mscdex.exe a:\
copy c:\windows\command\fdisk.* a:\

3.
Copy that "aoatapi.sys" file onto the floppy,

Now when you boot from that floppy, It will give you Access to you're hard drives and you're CDrom drives (assuming theyre IDE)

You can then proceed to :

A:\>format c: /s
A:\>md c:\win98
A:\>d:
\>cd Win98
\WIN98>copy *.* c:\win98
\WIN98>c:
C:\>cd win98
C:\WIN98>setup /is

You should now be starting the setup for Windows 98 (/is is a personal preferance, it stops it running scandisk)

You wont need the Win98 CD at all in future, as you've copied the (.CAB) Files across onto you're hard drive, so it can pull anything it needs from there, well worth the 80 megs or so it uses.

Good luck,
let us know how u get on,

RentZ

Gerry

There should be no need at all for a boot floppy, every pc I've used from a p166 upwards has been capable of booting from cdrom. On a dell bios it should be staring at you on the first screen when you go into bios setup. Just put CDROM first in the boot order and it should be fine.

Then you can either go directly into 98 setup from the bootmenu, or you can pick number 2 for a command prompt, where you can fdisk and format the drive.

Pharaoh

Cheers Guys!
I'll try your suggestions and let you know how I get on.

Joe22

hell i was able to boot on an old 90 compaq
at the c prompt type Format x:/s ,were x is the letter of the drive you want to format

foramts
then type X:setup, were x is the letter of your cd rom,
i dont know what the hell the other guys are talking about with boot disks and typing aload at the C prompt, maybe you can do it that way, but this way works and is easy.

you can allso use fdisk to set up partitions

Joe22

actually reading Renton way again, thats a very good way, i know afew people who have done it, most dont really bother.

Renton

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Joe22:
at the c prompt type Format x:/s ,were x is the letter of the drive you want to format

foramts
then type X:setup, were x is the letter of your cd rom,
i dont know what the hell the other guys are talking about with boot disks and typing aload at the C prompt, maybe you can do it that way, but this way works and is easy.

you can allso use fdisk to set up partitions</font>

Erm joe22, that would be a terrible terrible mistake, First of all, You would lose access to your Cdrom drive (no dos Driver), and you (after formatting) would lose the ability to do much at all (just boot into a prompt)

I suggest you be careful of what you say, because If someone had not replied quickly enough to you're post, He may have gone and done what you said, Causing major grief for him, and a BAD Rep for the Tech Boards,

Not a personal Stab at ya, cos personally I have nothing against u, but just be careful in future...

RentZ

Joe22

well ive done it serveral times before that way, but if you say it wont work for HIM ill take your word on it.

i dont understand how it hasnt worked for any of you guys before, have any of you ever tried it? all i ever need to install any OS was the dos prompt.
could someone *in a non flaming way* explain why this shouldn't work.

this was actually the way i was told to install an os in the instructions manual with my seagate.

Koopa

what gerry said would work perfectly, and is the way i would do it as well.
renton: the win98se cd already has a cdrom driver in its boot sector, you dont need anything other than a win98se cd to get the pc up and running, once the pc can boot off cdrom in the bios.

Gerry

ok, lets just say that we have booted, from a win98 cdrom, or a floppy. You could go straight into windows setup from the cdrom boot menu, or from a win98 boot disk. But the way renton suggests installing windows is far superior.

This is what he actually does in work, and I use the same method in my workplace also. Of course if the disk was new, or you wanted to split it for convenience or different operating systems, you would have to run fdisk before formatting, and then reboot.

Often in work I have to upgrade old win95 machines to win98, and so far all of them have booted from the win98 cdrom. Then I just fdisk if necessary, and install windows in the manner renton described above. Copying the cab files is a huge advantage, you never have to go hunting for the win98 cd again.

What you have described joe, will work, but its hardly ideal.

sutty

First off Joe, do you press F8 when windows is starting, or do you go into windows and then DOS?

Now you need some files to make a cdrom be detected by Command prompt. Autoexec.bat and some others that i Cant really remember.
(but this is only if you want to boot of a floppy)


As for a Dell BIOS, I've always found that you need to press ALT+P to go to the second page, its should be in the middle of the page. If you read what it says at the bottom of the page it will tell you how to change it. Just slap in your win98 cd and the computer will ask you do you want to boot from Hard Drive or CDROM. You say CDROM. It will then go through a little setup of Command prompt. Once this is finished you will then have the base command prompt with cdrom support. to format a drive go to the CDROM (by default its \) (unless you have a Hard drive on that letter) you can see if its the CDROM by typing "dir/w" if you get a List of files and directories, one of which is Win98. You then type format c: (where C is the drive you want to format). BUT make sure that you have drivers for your modem/and other cards for your pc.

back to the format. Once it is finished you may need to restart your computer. Once you have rebooted, go to again
this time from the base Directory type setup.exe (.exe is not needed but always good to type) It should then start a HD scan and then into the win98 setup program.

Good luck with the rest of the PC.

---

Ciaran Sutcliffe
aka: sutty
[HIV]sutty
For a good time goto:
http://www.hotinternetvirgins.com

Joe22

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Gerry:
What you have described joe, will work, but its hardly ideal.</font>

thank you, i think we all agree here that Renton way is the best.

EDIT im running win2k pro, so if i wanted to get into dos id have to boot into it off a floppy or cd, which you can do from the win98 cd


[This message has been edited by Joe22 (edited 20-05-2001).]

Pharaoh

ok.......
I decided to try rentons way but when i get as far as A:\>d: it tells me it's an invalid drive. Any ideas?
I feel as if I'm ****ing in the wind here.

Pharaoh

The exact wording is.......invalid drive specification

Joe22

your not typing A:\>d: are you?
at the A:\> prompt type d: or what ever else he wants, not the whole thing

Pharaoh

The A:\> is already there,all i'm doing is typing d: after it.

Gavin

Watch what the driver says as the machine boots up. It will say somethings like mapping d: or e: or f: or whatever to the cdrom. Just use whatever drive letter it picks..

Gav

Skeptic1

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Pharaoh:
The exact wording is.......invalid drive specification</font>

It looks like you are not loading up the driver for the CDROM.

On the floppy, your config.sys should contain the line:
aoatapi.sys /d:idecd001

and your autoexec.bat should contain the line:
mscdex /d:idecd001

Make sure this is the case and reboot with the floppy.

Alternativly, since you have already formatted your C: drive, you might try booting from the windows 98 cd. This will bring you up into the installation program. The BIOS is not normally set up to do this so you will need to set it to boot from the CD.



[This message has been edited by Skeptic1 (edited 20-05-2001).]

po0k

u don't need to set ur BIOS to boot off CD like they said.
Make a win98Se boot disk using Install/Remove Programs in Control Panal
Use this to wipe ur Hard drive. and setup partitions.
It creates a RAM Drive (ie uses a bit of RAM to act like a small 2Meg Hdd)
it takes a while toe xpand the stuuf fromt eh floppy, but it has every tool. The RAM DRive letter is the next one after ur last HDd/partition letter.
The floppy has a generic CDRom driver. Having cleaned ur disk, type \setup
where D is ur CDROM....
experiment first by trying to switch drives, try \ and type DIR after it to see whtas in the disk.
\DIR /p /p is a parameter allowing u to pause the scroll so ucan see all of the stuff.
once u find ur CD enter setup.
Then ur in a GUI. AWay u go.
The Boot CD tells me my drive is not properly formatted even though I enabled large disk suppport in FDISK and formatted it.
Try this, i've used this exactmethod and it works grand. CAn I copy over the CAB files manually or will winodws not know where they are? Cos Win's file searching abilities driver wise ayways leave a hell of a lot to be desired. 'Could not fin xxx.dll' Like Fúck

Gavin

Just phone bloody dell and get them to walk you through it.

Pharaoh

sorry for being such a pain....
I followed Rentons instructions to the letter
and tried again.........I got a different result,what do you think of this?

CD-ROM Device Driver For IDE (four channels)
Driver Version :510
Device Name :IDEECD00
Chipset Type :None
Drive 0: Port= 170(Secondary Channel)masterIRQ=15

Firmware Version :PD02
Transfer Mode :Programmed I/Q Mode4


A:>mscdex/d :idecd001
Device Driver Not Found: IDECD001
No Valid CD Rom device driver selected


[This message has been edited by Pharaoh (edited 20-05-2001).]

Gavin

Right it seems to have picked up IDEECD00

instead of idecd001

Change the line
mscdex /d:idecd001 in a:\autoexec.bat

to
mscdex /d:IDEECD00

and see what happens..
( it looks like you made a mistake in the config.sys and put it to IDEECD00
.

Gav


[This message has been edited by Verb (edited 20-05-2001).]

Pharaoh

Renton,Koopa Gerry,verb, etc.......
Thanks for all your help,It's finally sorted
(WOOOHOOO)and if I need to do it again at least I have a boot disk to help me along.

I hope one of you goes on to win the lotto!!
But not before me!!!

Lump

*READ THE F*CKING MANUAL*

:P

John

Gerry

I see you are back to posting nonsense again joe, perhaps you fail to notice that before you get this prompt, you have to boot from either a win98 cd rom ( which has a built in generic cdrom driver ) or a bootdisk with cdrom drivers. Thats the whole problem. Thanks for pointing out that you use fdisk for partitioning.

llatsni

hear, hear... 3 cheers for Joe22!